Logo

CBS Agrees to Discuss Ad Integration Costs With Task Force

May 23, 2008  •  Post A Comment

Of the Big Three networks, only CBS has accepted an offer to speak with a task force formed to address the $125 million in integration fees paid by advertisers.
ABC declined to address the task force, formed by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers. However, the network said it would be willing to discuss the issues with individual advertisers and their agencies, according to Bill Duggan, executive VP of the ANA, in a blog post (http://ana.blogs.com/maestros/2008/05/observations-qu.html).
NBC also declined, saying it preferred to have those conversations with clients rather than through a third party.
The meeting with CBS is being scheduled, Mr. Duggan said.
The issue of integration fees comes up periodically as marketers think about the upfront and other parts of the ad-buying process they’d like to change.
According to Mr. Duggan, integration fees are imposed only by the Big Three networks, and it is unclear what if anything advertisers are getting for that money. At one time they were imposed to cover the cost of manually inserting commercials into program feeds. Now that is done digitally.
Those networks charge a fee of about $470 for prime-time and evening news commercials and $230 for daytime and late-night spots.
“It would appear that the fees are in some way related to media costs, and it’s unclear why that would make any sense,” Mr. Duggan said.
He added that the networks have not increased integration fees for years, which means they can’t be related to labor costs.
“Advertisers are curious to understand the process the networks perform to integrate commercials as well as the physical hard costs associated with that,” he said.

9 Comments

  1. …”Integration Fee”…hmmm, where have I heard that before ??.Oh, yeh, that’s right…at a car dealer…”dealer prep fee”…

  2. You make blogging look like a walk in the park! I’ve been trying to blog daily but I just cant find writing material.. you’re an inspiration to me and i’m sure many others!

  3. I am extremely impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself? Either way keep up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like this one these days.. 🙂

  4. Hey how are you doing? I just wanted to stop by and say that it’s been a pleasure reading your blog. I have bookmarked your website so that I can come back & read more in the future as well. plz do keep up the quality writing

  5. I am extremely impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself? Either way keep up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like this one these days.. 🙂

  6. Way to focus and straight to your point, i love it. Keep up the work people. Dont let anyone stop us bloggers.

  7. Kudos to you! This is a really good blog here and I love your style of writing. How did you get so good at blogging?

  8. Nice blog here! Also your website loads up fast! What host are you using? I wish my website loaded up as fast as yours lol

  9. im not looking to be rude here but i would be ashamed to add content this stupid on my site. no offence.

Your Comment

Email (will not be published)